Soludo’s keenness on merit in appointments, projects rekindles trust in homeland

GOVERNOR Chukwuma Soludo has reiterated on several fora before his election that he was in a race to transform Anambra into a peaceful, loveable and prosperous mega city-state.

  Even with such a bold pledge to ndi Anambra, Gov. Soludo on assumption of office, didn’t rush to make appointments.  One major trait of a good leader is to surround himself with capable hands to run his administration’s policies. Yet, a leader takes credit or blame for the implementation of his policies by his aides. That explains the reason it took him time to make some key appointments.

  Though, Gov Soludo’s appointments came with some elements of surprises. He didn’t take to the usual ‘political jamborees’ dance. As the governor clearly stated, the appointments were purely on merit.

  The import of this is that people were not rewarded based on any affiliation to occupy a post but capability to handle responsibility based on their competence. In the past, the danger of rewarding people not fit for the office has cost the state much in resources and avoidable errors leading to socio-economic consequences.

  Merit is the new order in dealing with Soludo’s administration. Earlier, the governor had launched an online Talent databank for the people of the state who are interested in serving in his administration.

  Soludo said the talent databank is a tool for recruiting a talented team and volunteers who will serve ndi Anambra in the course of his administration.   He stated further that equal opportunity would be given to every indigene and people born and raised in Anambra, who may not be called indigenes, who have the requisite competencies and relevant valuable contributions to good governance in the state.

  Another point in this regard was the recruitment of teachers into the schools. The experience in the past of godfathers having a stake in teacher’s recruitment and deployment encouraged sloppiness in the system.  Not only were teachers’ recruited based on merit but were posted to their local government areas for the male and for the women to their husband’s local government areas.

  The wisdom behind this is to spur teachers to integrate with their local communities to impart knowledge and the development of the local government area they call home.

  Some teachers had wanted to effect change to their posting but turned as this was no longer business as usual. Gov. Soludo’s administration expects of them in the drive to provide quality and value based education for Anambra children starting from their LGA to help the state realising her developmental goals.

  Governor Soludo maintained that recruitments under his watch must be free, transparent and fair which he defines as Anambra’s standard, maintaining that global best practices will continue to be the beacon of his administration.

“My instruction was that only merit can get anyone a placement in the recruitment exercise, the phenomenon of well-placed persons being given “slots” to nominate candidates for recruitment should never happen.

“To demonstrate my commitment to this, I instructed that even if I were to give them any name(s) for employment, they should throw such away. Teaching is not just a job, it is a vocation and no one should be employed as a teacher on any consideration other than merit.

  The lull in the road constructions in the state has taken a new turn with instantaneous road construction taking place across the three senatorial districts of the state. The salient point of this trajectory is that roads were awarded based on the immediate economic values, or to link other towns to open up the place for long term economic gains.

  The second import of the roads construction is decongesting roads, especially in the urban areas that have created nightmares for motorists and commuters’. The UNIZIK Tempsite, Club Road-IsuAniocha by Okpuno road in the Awka Capital Territory is an example of such roads. This stand by Soludo’s administration is proving to be wise, even as it maintains that roads in the state deserve to be rehabilitated or new ones built but those of economic values deserved immediate attention.